Zhuangzi and Plato: Language and the World, the World of Language

This article inquires into the philosophies of language of Plato and Zhuangzi while placing special emphasis on the delicate and complex interplay between the ways they understand language and their worldviews and writing methods. It is argued that Plato is a linguistic realist who assumes language reflects an objective reality. Zhuangzi, in contrast, is a linguistic conventionalist and skeptic, holding that language constructs rather than reflects the world. Through a comparative philosophical lens, the paper analyzes how linguistic structures and cultural context shaped those thinkers’ perspectives and uses Jacques Derrida’s logocentrism critique and Chad Hansen’s mass nouns theory to better explain their linguistic-philosophical views. The study employs philosophical content and linguistic-textual analysis to highlight how their different traditions influenced their understanding of language. Despite the paper’s claim that Plato and Zhuangzi differ significantly in their perception of language, it also points to a shared important theme: Both philosophers use literary and rhetorical devices. This means that for the two of them, knowledge is not only captured in propositional statements but is also sculpted through style and expression. By exposing the profound interest of those major ancient philosophers in language and its relation to the world, the study shows that language and philosophy of language were already significant themes in the early days of world philosophy. By delving into a cross-cultural dialogue, the study suggests a refreshed vantage point on how language functions in various philosophical frameworks and on the discourse of the relationship between language, meaning, and reality.